Can you trust the labelling?

“Lowers cholesterol”, “1% more fibre”, and “only 0,3% fat”. More and more nutritional labelling on products now also health nutritional labelling is required by the new EU rules, but there is still the same amount of space on the packaging. The increasing amount of information makes it difficult for the consumer to decide whether the packaging is trustworthy when he or she is looking at the product.

3,000 complaints

During the past 10 years 3,000 mislabelling cases have ended up on the table at Department of Consumer Affairs. The question is whether the different consumer groups are able to decipher the information; and whether the producers are willing to – and capable of – considering this. The research project “Spin or fair talk – when foods talk” is doing something about it.

The decision takes 12 seconds

The individual consumer takes about 12 seconds to decide whether to buy something or to put it back on the shelf, so there is not much time to think about the information on the packaging. Looking at a wide variety of actual mislabelling cases, a research team is supposed to define whether and how a food product can mislead the consumer with what it “says”.

What will be the result?

The group will make a catalogue of conflict scenarios and possible models for solutions that are meant to help the food product companies communicate better with the consumer. The last phase will be to test the effect in a series of experiments where a selected group of consumers will be confronted with both fair and less fair packaging designs in neutral surroundings and in a supermarket.

The Program Committee of Food and Health (FøSu) at the Strategic Research Council supports the project with DKK 8 million.